Friday Hot Links

Football

• Rey Maualuga made the 2008 Lombardi Award watch list. The trophy is awarded annually to the nation's best linebacker. If you've been living in a cave, this video explains the nod.
• Ted Miller, who moved this offseason from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to ESPN, has a pretty quick breakdown of the Pac-10's spring story lines.
• USC alum Jack Del Rio got a contract extension as head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
• It's not quite a player pretending to fall off of a building, but Pete Carroll pulled another big prank. On April Fool's Day he had the fuzz come into a team meeting and look for defensive lineman Everson Griffen because of an alleged physical assault against a freshman. After a bizarre moment, the team was shown film of Griffen man-handling offensive lineman Matt Meyer in a recent practice drill. Video goodness is available here.
• Per USCRipsIt.com: "Safety Taylor Mays and linebackers Rey Maualuga and Brian Cushing have been named to the Playboy Preseason All-American team ..."

Hoops

• Rivals regraded the class of 2007. USC's freshmen originally were ranked second after Florida, and performed close to expectations with an A- grade.

Assorted Gossip

• Matt Leinart's beer bong got its 15 seconds of fame on SportsCenter. The video can be found here.
• Inmates in Tennessee are being issued pink uniforms so they can't blend in with Volunteer fans.

New Lexicon

• U·S·C'd -- Function: transitive verb -- Definition: Team/group pummeling.
• Mau·a·lu·ga'd --Function: transitive verb -- Definition: Singular of USC'd.
• Etymology: Conquest Chronicles and EDSBS.